Psalm 23:1

Psalm 23:1 "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.”

“Want” is an old-fashioned word, as it’s used in the twenty-third Psalm. It means to lack or need something, or to feel the lack of it. People used to say, “He wants wisdom,” and they didn’t mean that he desired wisdom. They meant that he didn’t have a wise bone in his body, and he sorely needed it. So this Psalm doesn’t mean that I’m never going to desire anything. It means that, when the Lord is my Shepherd, I’ll never feel a lack of anything I need.

Unfortunately, I want. In both the current and the old senses of the word. I want my work hours to be shorter. I want more energy left at the end of the day. I want to be able to travel more. I want less stress, more peace, and maybe even enough time to have a relationship with a Christian man. Oh, and I guess I want that Christian man to show up too.

I haven’t thought about wanting as wrong, because the things I want aren’t wrong. But wanting in the modern sense also means wanting in the old-fashioned sense. By telling the Lord that I want my life to be different, I’m also telling Him that I’m not satisfied with what He has provided for me. That kind of dissatisfaction is wrong.

Of course, there are times when the Lord gives us dissatisfaction in order to stir us out of our complacency or to set us in a new direction where we can be more effective for Him. But more often than not, I find that my dissatisfaction grows out of a stubborn, selfish heart—a heart that forgets to follow its Shepherd.

What fills your heart? Is it dissatisfaction? Is it wanting what the Lord hasn’t given you? Or, is it trust for the Shepherd who provides all you need so you need not want?

Look to your Shepherd.

Brenda